Diplomacy and Defection
by soultaker78
Summary: Purrsephone gets fed up the way Toralei treats her and decides to begin the uphill journey of joining Cleo's group of friends. This leads to discoveries nobody saw coming.
1. Chapter 1

Author's notes: I want to say up front that this story takes place at an earlier point in the series continuity (if it has any), shortly after volume 2 of the webisodes. Also, I don't consider the CGI specials cannon, so there's that.

….

After school one day, Spectra had sent texts to the fearleading team saying that she needed to speak with them in private.

"We're here now, Spectra," Cleo said the ghostly gossip. "What's this about?"

"I have a confession to make," Spectra began. "I've kind of been friends with Toralei since before I met you."

There was an awkward silence as Cleo, Frankie, Draculara, Clawdeen and Ghoulia processed this.

"Have you told her anything personal about us?" Cleo asked accusingly.

"Nothing I haven't shared with the rest of the school," Spectra clarified. "Now you're probably wondering why I'm just now mentioning this."

"Among other things," Clawdeen added with a glare.

"Well," Spectra began, "Purrsephone came to me and said that she was going to tell you about my connection to Toralei so she gave me the chance to expose myself."

"Why is it so important that we know about you and Toralei?" Draculara asked.

"I'm not sure," Spectra answered. "All I know is that she wanted me to reveal that and then give you this note saying that she wants to….. well, just read it." Spectra pulled a piece of paper out of her purse that Cleo eagerly grabbed.

_Dear everyone, _the note began. _I imagine you're all practically drooling in curiosity to know what the hell this is all about. Well, to put it simply, Toralei has been treating me like crap lately and I want to defect to your group. I am willing to offer gifts and information to affect your decision, but I want to talk about this in person before we go further. Call me to set a meeting if you're interested._

The note ended with Purrsephone's cell phone number. There was yet another awkward silence as the fearleading team took this all in.

"So," Spectra interrupted their musings. "Where do we all stand?"

"I would like to point out," Frankie began, "that we never told Spectra that she couldn't hang out with Toralei."

"That is true," Cleo said as she grabbed her chin in contemplation. "We'll need to think about that some more Spectra, but we've got something else to worry about right now." She then turned to her fellow fearleaders. "What are we going to do about Purrsephone?"

"I say there's no harm in hearing her out," Draculara said. Ghoulia and Frankie nodded in agreement while Clawdeen didn't.

Cleo took out her phone and dialed the number in the letter.

…..

"You have no idea how happy I was to get your call," Purresphone said with a wide grin after she had been given a ride to Cleo's place. Purresphone then took a bag she had brought with her and placed several DVD cases on a table in between her and the fearleaders. "These are the first seasons of some very good TV shows. These are just for letting me plead my case to you guys."

"How generous of you," Cleo said with a grin, pleased that the werecat was so eager to win her over.

"Let's see what you've got her," Clawdeen said. She may not be interested in giving Purresphone the benefit of the doubt, but she was interested taking her no-strings attached gifts. She looked at the DVDs and saw that they just had plain covers with the names of the shows on them.

Frankie started reciting the names of the shows aloud. "Rook, Grizolli and Biles, Storeroom 17, Disgusting Canadians, Immodest and Bowman."

"These are fake, aren't they?" Clawdeen asked.

"No," the werecat answered. "The discs contain which shows the covers say they do."

"But you didn't get these in any ways that involved money changing hands with the copyright holders, did you?" Clawdeen clarified.

"In that case, yes: they are fake," Purrsephone admitted. "But if you're not interested," she said as she went to grab the case containing Grizolli and Biles that Clawdeen was looking at.

"Now I'm not saying that," Clawdeen said as she pulled the case towards herself. "I just want you to be straight-up with us."

"I would not recommend Bowman to any of you," Draculara said. "I watched it with Clawd a few times and I could never get into it. I lived through the period it's supposed to take place in and the show makers are incredibly lazy about letting modern touches in."

"I'm pretty sure it's supposed to take place in its own universe that's a mix ofa bunch of different points in history," Purresphone explained.

"Oh," Draculara said. "That would explain why the characters had clothes from the sixties, cars from the seventies, computers from the eighties and modern cell phones. But that doesn't change how the main character is such a douche."

"We're getting off topic here," Clawdeen said. "What is it you really want, Purresphone?"

"I want to be on the fearleading team," the dark haired werecat said.

"I already see a problem with this," Clawdeen said with a glower. "To let you on the team, we'll need to trust you. That's going to be a real problem, at least for me, because every word out of your mouth is like a tiny lie."

"Now I will admit," Cleo began, "that we should not immediately trust Purresphone, but that seems a bit much."

"Not really," Purresphone said. "She's thinking about an incident between us a couple months ago."

….

(Begin flashback)

_In the halls of Monster High in between classes, Clawdeen saw the werecat twins away from Toralei. She decided to go up to them and voice her opinion on something she'd been meaning to talk to them about for a while. _

"_Hey you two," the werewolf fashionista said to the twins. "Look, I have no idea why all I see you two do is stand behind Toralei and not say anything, but you can do more than that."_

_The twins just looked at her blankly and Purrsephone started making random movements with her hands that Clawdeen mistook for sign language._

"_Oh," Clawdeen said with an embarrassed expression. "That's why you two never talk: you can't. "There was an awkward silence for a moment. "I have to….. go be somewhere else. Bye."_

_The two werecats giggled to themselves as the normally composed and fierce werewolf walked away so flustered. _

(End flashback)

…..

"That was fun," Purrsephone said with a grin as she finished describing the incident. Her grin faded when she saw Clawdeen giving her the stink-eye. "This is what you tried to talk me into, Clawdeen: I'm trying to get away from being under Toralei's thumb. Now, I know you wished that I'd tried it sooner and without making you think my sister and I are mute when we're not and I am sorry about that."

"Is there a reason we haven't we heard you talk before this?" Frankie asked.

"Because I've never had anything to say to any of you before now," Purrsephone explained.

"Clawdeen does bring up something important," Cleo said. "Specifically, trust issues. For all we know, you're trying to infiltrate our group for Toralei."

"Or maybe this is just a hair-brained scheme to differentiate myself from my sister in the eyes of the school. Why isn't that an option?" Purrsephone angrily countered and finished by slamming her fist against the table.

"Okay," Cleo said slowly as she thought about how to proceed. "We'll come back to that later. I have two other questions: why was it so important for you to expose Spectra's connection to Toralei and why do you want to turn on her all of a sudden?"

"First," Purrsephone began, "I wanted to expose Spectra to make you reconsider issues of trust and improve my odds of you taking me on."

"You choose very poorly to do that with Spectra: I never trusted her very much," Cleo said and her friends glared at her. "What? It's not my fault that she embellishes her stories so much that she should have her artistic license revoked."

"Moving on," Purrsephone said. "I have been getting fed up with Toralei treating me like her servant for a long time and it's been building up. More importantly, I'm doing this now because my sister is going to be out of town for over a week. Mom needed to take one of us to help with a family emergency on our uncle Jerry's emu ranch in the Canadian Rockies and Meowlody lost rock-paper-scissors so she had to go."

"And with her gone, you only have to worry about an angry Toralei," Cleo said as she put her chin in her hand. "Smart."

"I know," Purrsephone said with a self-satisfied grin. "Now here is the specific deal I want: you will let me on the fearleading team and I will share some interesting facts about Toralei with you. I would also like to point that if you take me on, it will really piss off Toralei but she'll only be pissed at me so you won't have to worry about payback."

"Just to be clear here," Clawdeen began, "you want us to trust you because you are selling out someone who's been your friend for we don't even know how long. Do you see a problem with that?"

"I do," Purrsephone said. "But that's mostly because Toralei hasn't been a great friend to me. My biggest problem with her is that after fearleading Mashionals, I tried to convince her that if we – her, me and my sister – really wanted to get back on the fearleading team, then we should try diplomacy and build on the good will from that one, beautiful moment when we all hated Nefera more than each other. But as usual, Toralei wouldn't listen to me and decided to keep going with pranks against you even though she admits that the amount of long-term success we've had with that can best be described as 'depressing'. And things only got worse when Toralei got her motorcycle last month. Have you girls seen it yet?"

Ghoulia moaned something in response.

"Someone's gonna have to translate that for me: I don't speak ug ug," Purrsephone said.

"She said," Cleo began, "that she got a good look at Toralei's motorcycle when Toralei used it to run donuts around her scooter when she tried to leave the school parking lot."

"Oh yeah. That happened," Purrsephone said with a slight grin. "Anyway, since Toralei was the first of us to get her own vehicle, we've been getting around on that and since Toralei won't get a sidecar, it's a very tight squeeze to get all of us on there. It's especially bad for me because Meowlody makes me go in the middle and Toralei doesn't want to help me change that because she says it's a family matter."

"So anyway, that's where standing by Toralei has gotten me: on a road to nowhere, riding on a cramped motorcycle between two other ghouls with my twin sister's tits pressing against my back," the werecat concluded.

"That's awful, Purrsephone," Frankie said sympathetically. "Especially that last part."

"Yeah, I didn't need to hear that," Cleo added disapprovingly.

"Sorry about that," Purrsephone said. "Anyway, in response to Cleo's earlier question about how can you be sure I'm not a infiltrator working for Toralei, I have three reasons to defect: to get back on the fearleading team for status purposes, to get back at Toralei for not listening to me and to differentiate myself from my sister in the eyes of the school, although I already brought up that last one. So do we have a deal or not?"

"I'd say yes but first I need to see what everyone else thinks," Cleo said and looked at her friends. Frankie, Draculara and Ghoulia all nodded yes. Clawdeen paused for a second before nodding in agreement as well.

Cleo extended her hand for so she and Purrsephone could shake on their agreement.


	2. Chapter 2

"This is awkward," Purrsephone said as she just looked at Cleo's extended hand.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Cleo asked angrily.

"I really should have brought this up earlier, but I want our agreement in writing," Purrsephone said.

"Oh that's rich," Clawdeen began. "After everything you've done to us alongside Toralei, you have the nerve to not trust us."

"And I am sorry about that," the werecat said. "But look where I'm coming from here: while I do have problems with Toralei, I've also had some good times with her too and I'm about to throw that all away. More importantly, this is going to cause a rift between me and Meowlody who I'll have to continue living with when she gets back from Canada, so that's going to be tough. Fortunately, Uncle Jerry's emu ranch has no Internet and cell service so she's not going to hear about this for a while or send me mean spirited e-mails. To get back on topic, I just want to make sure that all the sacrifices I'm about to make will be worth it."

"Fine," Cleo said. All the girls went to Ramses de Nile's home office where Ghoulia quickly typed up a contract and printed up two copies. After the contracts were signed, the girls left the home office and sat down where they originally were.

"Before you tell us what information you have," Cleo began, "I have a question of my own. Back in my freshman year, did Toralei have anything to do with those rumors going around about me being a hater of Jews?"

"No, that happened all on it's own," Purrsephone clarified.

"I seriously doubt that it happened on its own," Cleo said. "Someone started it to make me look bad: the only question is who."

"Or maybe," the werecat began, "several people came to the conclusion on their own and spread it around. I mean, you do understand why people might think you're a jew hater: you're from a part of the world that's not very fond of the Jewish people and you were part of a civilization that enslaved them."

"Not my family specifically," Cleo explained. "Our slaves were black."

"You should probably keep that to yourself," Purrsephone countered.

"And if there's any religious group I do hate, it's the Muslims," Cleo continued.

"What did they ever do to you?" Draculara asked.

"They completely eradicated traditional Egyptian polytheism in the region," Cleo said with barely contained anger. "There's also the matter of how certain things done by some Muslims make everyone from that part of the world look bad, but I don't think we have the time to go into that. Though I'm surprised that Toralei had nothing to do with that since she's Jewish."

"She's not Jewish," Purrsephone stated matter-of-factly.

"Are you sure?" Cleo asked. "Because her name has the word 'Torah' in it which is the Jewish bible."

"The 'tora' in her name refers to the Japanese word for tiger," Purrsephone explained. Ghoulia moaned something in response. "Translation please."

"She says that she never would have guessed that Toralei is Japanese," Frankie said. "And I share that opinion."

"You can't really tell ethnicity with some monster species," Purrsephone explained. "I mean, I'm of African decent but the only way that manifests itself is as a family history of Sickle-Cell Anaemia."

All the ghouls looked at the dark-haired werecat oddly. "I did it again, didn't I?" she asked.

"Did what?" Draculara asked.

"I sometimes say very strange things," Purrsephone answered. "It's part of why this is the most you've heard me talk: I've learned it's best to hold my tongue around people I'm not super close to."

"And why does Meowlody not talk either?" Frankie asked.

"As a show of our sisterly bond," Purrsephone explained and then looked a bit saddened. "She's awesome like that sometimes. And those moments are going to be much more rare when she hears about this."

"I'm sure she'll get over it," Clawdeen said. "My sister and I always make up after our fights, which we've had a lot of, and neither of has ever done something like join in on the other's self-imposed vow of silence. It will take a while, but I'm sure you and Meowlody will patch things up."

"On the other hand," Cleo interjected, "Sister's can be petty, mean-spirited and unimaginably cruel."

"I'm pretty sure that has less to do with Nefera being your sister and more to do with her being a horrible person in general," Purrsephone countered.

"Probably," Cleo admitted.

"Anyway," Purrsephone continued. "Time for dirt on Toralei. Do you remember that story Spectra did on the three of us that involved Toralei being an orphan and my sister and I meeting her in prison?" Purrsephone asked and the others nodded yes. "All lies."

"Can someone go pick up that phone?" Cleo said with a smirk. "Because I totally called it!"

"You knew it was fake?" Purrsephone asked.

"I strongly suspected," Cleo explained. "I found it really strange that I never heard about Toralei being an orphan from the streets with a criminal record until Spectra's story came out. And as I mentioned earlier, I've never really considered her a source of factually accurate information."

"Moving on," Purrsephone said, "when she was eight, Toralei had this dream of being the first werecat to be an Howlympic swimmer so she tried to learn how to swim in defiance of our nature. Things went well for a while, but then she tried swimming in the deep end, had a panic attack and had to be pulled out by a lifeguard."

There was an awkward silence for a moment. "I never thought I would say this about any story that involves something bad happening to Toralei, but that's not funny," Cleo said.

"I never said it was funny: I just said it happened," Purrsephone said in her own defense. "Also, Toralei has a seething hatred of normies."

"What did they ever do to her?" Frankie asked with a hint of irritation.

"They killed her uncle in a lynch mob," the dark-haired werecat responded.

"Oh," Frankie said in surprise. She knew there was a lot of hatred against normies, but all she had seen of that was Jackson getting picked on at school. She knew that monster/normie relations were more complicated than that but she'd never experienced it firsthand yet.

"And now we come to the best part," Purrsephone said. "Toralei strongly believes in the existence of aliens."

The mummy and the werewolf started chuckling at Toralei's belief in such an absurd concept.

"It's not that funny," Draculara said. "If you'd seen have the strange things I have over the last 1600 years, you'd be open to the possibility of life on other planets. And is that really so farfetched when looking at the variety of life forms just in this room. We've got a vampire, a werecat, a werewolf, a mummy, a zombie and…," the pink vampire paused when she looked at Frankie and realized that she didn't fall into classical monster categorization systems. "Frankie," she concluded.

"She's a meat robot," Purrsephone said, attempting to categorize Frankie. Everyone else in the room did not enjoy her choice of term and expressed in their looks at the werecat, who then faced Frankie. "What? You were artificially created, you run on electricity, you were assembled from spare parts…..," the other girls' glares intensified on Purrsephone as she attempted to explain her reasoning. "Sorry about that."

"But it gets better with Toralei," she continued. "When she first met Scarah Screams, she thought that Scarah was an alien."

Clawdeen and Cleo started laughing uproariously with this new revelation. Frankie, Ghoulia and Draculara restrained themselves for about three seconds before laughing as well.

"Why would she think that Scarah was an alien?" Clawdeeen asked after she was done laughing.

"Because she looks a little like one of those cartoonish little green men," Purrsephone began, "and because TV signals travel into space after they're broadcasted, so if aliens existed they would just now be receiving decades old TV shows depending on how far away they are. Toralei thought this was a perfect explanation for why Scarah dresses like she could be dancing inside a giant bird cage at a Londoom nightclub circa 1967."

"What?" Clawdeen asked in puzzlement.

"She's talking about," Draculara began, "how Scarah dresses in a style that was very popular in the United Kingdom during the Sixties."

"That's what I said," Purrsephone said.

"She said it better," Clawdeeen said.

"Well," Purrsephone began, "I would have said that Scarah dresses like a backup dancer in a Bitealls music video but I'm pretty sure music videos weren't a thing back then."

"They weren't," Draculara clarified. "And even if they were, the Bitealls never used backup dancers."

The ghouls made some small talk for a while before Purrsephone said that she had to leave. She felt that this was off to a good start.


	3. Chapter 3

It was Thursday morning at Monster High. Cleo, Clawdeen, Frankie, Draculara and Ghoulia had gathered outside the school to talk before classes started. Purrsephone ran up to them.

"Hi ghouls," Purrsephone said with a smile. "First day of a new era. Exciting, isn't it? Has news broken yet about my defection?"

"Not yet, but that's bound to change soon," Frankie said and noticed that some of the other students were noticing her talking to who they still knew as Toralei's minion. She then saw someone she knew approaching them. "Hey Venus."

"Hey Frankie," Venus said as she walked up while holding some flyers. "I would really like it if you could make it to….. what are you doing here, Purrsephone?" the plant girl said as she just noticed the werecat.

"That's a long story," Purrsephone said after turning and revealing that she had put on a surgical mask that she kept in one of her vest pockets when she heard Venus coming.

"Are you still upset about what happened that one time?" Venus asked.

"What, this?" Purrsephone said as she pointed to her mask. "I'm trying to start a new trend."

"You're not, are you?" Venus asked disbelievingly.

"Of course not," Purrsephone admitted with a hint of irritation. "I'm still pissed about the last time you used your mind control spores on me and this is a justified precaution."

"Right," Venus said awkwardly then walked away. Ghoulia then moaned something.

"What did she say this time?" Purrsephone asked while putting her mask away.

"She asked," Draculara began, "if it was necessary for you to be so confrontational with Venus."

"Yes, yes it was," Purrsephone said with determination. "By the way, how do you understand her: it just sounds like moans and groans to me."

"There's a trick to it. We'll go over it later if you're interested," Draculara said.

The group then migrated inside the school and walked along the hallway. After a few minutes, they ran into the one person they didn't want to run into.

"Hi ghouls," Toralei said with a mean grin. "Enjoying the company of your newest turncoat."

"We are, actually," Cleo said as Purrsephone tensed up and reached into one of her vest pockets. "Turns out, she's quite pleasant and funny when she's doing more than just standing silently next to you." Cleo then began staring at Toralei as though she were looking for something.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Toralei asked with obvious annoyance.

"I was just looking for signs that you're actually Japanese, which I probably should have known before," Cleo said.

"That's because I'm not Japanese, my parents are," Toralei explained with obvious disdain. "I'm as American as apple pie and outsourcing jobs overseas to cut costs. By the way, have any of you checked the gossip site this morning?"

"I don't like where this is going," Purrsephone said as she got out her iCoffin with her free hand and went to the gossip site. She was horrified to see that an embarrassing childhood photo of her wearing the cone of shame after finding out about her allergy to bird feathers was now available for the school's viewing pleasure.

"Did you really think that a little blackmail would keep me from pursuing petty revenge, the most noble purpose in the world?" Toralei asked condescendingly to her former friend.

"Two things," Frankie said. "First, I'm pretty sure noble doesn't mean what you think it does. Second," she turned to Purrsephone, "you're blackmailing her?"

"Blackmail is a harsh word. And accurate," Purrsephone responded. "In my defense, Toralei is not the kind of ghoul you should handle with kid gloves."

"I just want to say," Toralei started, "that a part of me is proud of you for making such a display of treachery and initiative, but another, much larger part of me is going to destroy you for displaying such traits at my expense. Also, I think this belongs to you."

Toralei reached into her jacket, pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to Purrsephone before turning around and leaving.

"She's taking this even worse than I thought," Purssephone said in a dejected tone as she unfolded the paper and looked at it. It had cartoonish drawings of Purrsephone and Meowlody hugging Toralei in between the two of them. "Meowlody and I gave this to Toralei when we were eight as a sign of how we considered her to be our third, non-identical sister."

"That's unfortunate," Cleo said in her best sympathetic tone. "But now that Toralei has posted this incredibly embarrassing photo of you," Cleo said as she held up her phone with said picture on it, "it's time for you to expose whatever you thought you could blackmail Toralei with to the school."

"No," Purrsephone said. "Right now, Toralei is much like her pet smilodon when she brought it home for the first time and it started using all the chair legs as chew toys."

"What?" Draculara asked.

"She's testing her boundaries," Purrsephone explained. "Think of blackmail as a gun with a single, magic bullet. Since you can only shoot it once, you can't use it to solve every little problem. Toralei knows this and feels she can do a few small revenge pranks and I won't expose her because it would free her up to do bigger ones."

"Does anyone else think it's strange that Toralei has all the power in this arrangement even though she's the one being blackmailed?" Frankie asked.

"Yes, I do find it strange: and infuriating," Purrsephone replied. "Besides, I have hope that I can smooth things over with Toralei after she cools down and the odds have that happening will go way down if I expose her."

"Really?" Cleo asked incredulously. "You really think you can be on good terms with Toralei again after what just happened?"

"Yes, I do," the werecat answered. "I know right now that that seems impossible, but Toralei thought the same thing about being diplomatic with you and look how that turned out."

"Fair enough," Cleo admitted. "By the way, what were you reaching for inside your vest earlier?"

"This," Purrsephone said as she reached into the same pocket as earlier and pulled out a handful of sand. There was an awkward silence for a moment.

"You're going to make me ask, aren't you?" Cleo asked with a deadpan expression.

"Ask what?"

"Why do you keep sand in one of your vest pockets?"

"In case I ever need to throw it in someone's eyes, duh," Purrsephone answered and then put the sand back in her vest. "I keep all kind of stuff in here: money, makeup, duct tape, sunglasses, this sock full of pennies," the werecat said as she pulled out a sock with a bunch of pennies that were tied into a small pocket on one end to show everyone before putting it away.

"You're a very strange ghoul," Cleo said. "And speaking of strange, Toralei didn't act like she usually does in that last confrontation. I thought I knew her pretty well since I've known her for three years."

"You've known her for two years," Purrsephone corrected.

"Sometimes it feels like three," Cleo explained.

"Toralei likes to think that she's the center of the universe," Purrsephone began, "and can be very pissy when this opinion is challenged."

"I can't stand people like that," Cleo said and then everyone in her group started staring at her incredulously. "Why are you all looking at me like that?"

Fortunately, the bell signaling them to get to class rang so they didn't have to answer that question.

….

After the first class of the morning, Purrsephone went through the halls and came across Scarah Screams.

"Hi Scarah," Purrsephone said.

"Hello," Scarah said a little nervously.

"I take it you've heard about my falling out with Toralei?" the dark-haired werecat asked. The sixties-styled banshee nodded yes. "I need a small favor from you: I need you to tell Toralei that I haven't shared anything about her mixed heritage or preferences with Cleo's group yet."

"Why can't you tell Toralei this yourself," Scarah asked.

"Because Toralei is very pissed at me right now and likely won't believe me," Purrsephone explained. "She might believe you: especially since you're going to read my mind to verify what I'm telling you is true."

"Okay," Scarah said, understanding Purrsephone's viewpoint and agreeing to do the mental fact check. About ten seconds later, Scarah was done and had confirmed everything Purrsephone said. "What do they know about my…. history with Toralei?"

"They know that Toralei thought you were an alien," Purrsephone began, "but I left out the part where she hit on you because of that."

"Thank you," Scarah said. "It would have been really bad if that became more than a little joke between me and Toralei."

The two ghouls parted and Purrsephone went over to her locker to exchange books when she was approached by a certain half-normie/half-monster boy.

"Hey Purrsephone," Jackson said.

"Hey Jackson," Purrsephone said as she entered the combination to her locker and stood next get clear. "Get clear," she said to anyone nearby as she opened the locker door and a water balloon shot out from a small catapult inside. The balloon flew and broke against the locker on the opposite end of the hall.

"I see that Toralei is taking the recent development as well as expected," Jackson said.

"Yeah," Purrsephone said with a hint of sadness and then exchanged books. "Anyway, what did you want to talk about?"

"I want to tell Frankie and her friends about the first time we met," Jackson said.

…

(Begin flashback)

_It was Jackson's third day at Monster High and while he had made a few friends, most of the school was not happy about having a normie around. He was walking the halls in between classes when Toralei and the twins walked up to him. Toralei grabbed him and slammed him against a row of lockers._

"_Listen here you normie scumbag," Toralei said threateningly. "I'm going to be keeping a close eye on you so if you try anything funny, I'm going to chop off your wang and force feed it to you." Toralei smiled and relaxed at the thought of enacting this on Jackson. "Have a nice day."_

_Toralei let go of Jackson and began walking away. With Toralei and Meowoldy's backs turned, Purrsephone stayed behind._

"_I'm very sorry about that," she whispered into Jackson's ear. "Toralei has serious problems with normies. I can explain everything if you meet me inside the catacombs by the entrance near the library after classes are done."_

_Purrsephone caught up with Toralei and her sister before they noticed that she wasn't with them._

_After classes that day, Jackson went into the catacombs at the place Purrsephone mentioned. He had Heath waiting outside near the entrance in the event this was a trap._

"_So you decided to come," Purrsephone said, standing several feet Jackson's right._

"_I did," Jackson said, taking a quick look around to see if Toralei or Meowoldy were nearby._

"_They're not here," Purrsephone told him. "I came alone."_

"_Can you really blame me for checking?" Jackson asked._

"_No," Purrsephone answered. "Anyway, I'm sorry about what happened earlier. Based on her own past, Toralei thought it was necessary to threaten you to make sure you abandoned any plans of getting together with other normies, putting on brightly colored spandex and beating monsters up till they exploded."_

"_What?" Jackson said with almost tangible confusion._

"_Crap," Purrsephone said as she put her face in her hand and began thinking of a better way to start explaining things. "You know those TV shows the Japanese have been making sense the 70's where five normies in brightly colored spandex fight monsters of the 'that's a guy in a rubber suit' variety and kill it and it explodes?"_

"_Maybe," Jackson lied. Jackson used to watch Power Rangers when he was younger and knew that it was based on the long running Super Sentai series from Japan, which was what Purrsephone was talking about._

"_Good," Purrsephone continued. "Those shows have occasionally inspired violence against actual monsters in Japan among very bigoted slash very stupid normies. Toralei's uncle was killed by such normies who were dressed up like characters from one of those shows. Even worse, one of them was never caught or identified."_

"_And that's why Toralei threatened me with genital amputation?" Jackson and asked and Purrsephone nodded yes. "I see." Jackson thought about what he had just learned for a moment. "I definitely feel better knowing that Toralei's words had nothing to with me and everything to do with her own issues, but why tell me this?"_

"_I don't think it's fair that you had the crap scared out of you to the point of constipation because of Toralei's past," Purrsephone explained. "If you are grateful to me for sharing this with you, then you won't tell anyone about this conversation. Otherwise, Toralei will have a reason to be pissed at you for something that's actually related to you. Are we clear?"_

"_Crystal," Jackson answered._

_(_End flashback)

…..

"Why do you want to tell them about that?" Purrsephone asked.

"I think it will help you," Jackson said. "It shows that you haven't always seen eye to eye with her on everything and there was at least one time where you undid some of the damage she did."

"Okay," she said. "You can tell them about that."

"Great," Jackson said as he walked away.

Purrsephone hadn't thought about telling Cleo's group about her secret conversation with Jackson because she thought of it as something personal between them. Also, she did not see any connection between that conversation and her current situation. While she did not originally plan this for Cleo's group, she was pleased that Jackson had thought of this.

…..

Author's notes: I apologize to anyone who's Japanese or of Japanese decent for anything that might come off as racist in this chapter. I just thought that this could be a possible result of what Japan's love of Super Sentai would be like in the world of Monster High. Also, from what I understand Japan is not very tolerant of people who are different, especially people of Korean decent who live in Japan.

And if you're wondering why Japan would continue making Super Sentai shows after the occasional real life monster slaying, it's because the slayings were done by people who already had trouble telling fantasy apart from reality.


	4. Chapter 4

At lunch that day, Draculara and Frankie walked up to Purrsephone as the werecat got in the lunch line.

"You can sit with us if you want to," Draculara offered.

"Thanks, but I don't want to impose," Purrsephone said. "Besides, I've already got plans to sit with Operetta."

"You two are friends?" Frankie asked.

"Of a sort," the werecat answered.

"How did that happen?" Frankie asked.

"My cousin works at the music store she goes to a lot," Purrsephone lied. She was worried about Clawdeen and the rest of her new kind-of-friends would think if they knew how she really got to know Operetta.

…..

(Begin flashback)

_Meowlody and Purrsephone were in the catacombs under Monster High. They were sitting down against a wall and smoking joints when they heard footsteps approaching them._

"_Hey there," Operetta said with a hint of irritation. "What have I told you two about comin' down here to smoke weed?"_

"_That we have to share?" Meowlody asked as she handed a joint to the southern ghoul._

"_Darn straight!" Operetta enthusiastically replied as she grabbed the joint and joined them on the floor. Purrsephone gave her a lighter, she lit up and took a small drag. "Woo weee! This is good stuff."_

(End flashback)

…

Toralei got her food and sat down at a table with Scarah. "Hi," she said.

"Hi," Scarah replied. She did a great job of maintaining her composure but was caught a little off guard that Toralei approached her first. "There's something I need to tell you."

"Same here, but let me go first," Toralei said. "With Purrsephone's defection and Meowlody out of town right now, it has occurred to me just how few really close friends I have outside of the twins, so I'm planning to have a little get together tomorrow night. It's just going to be you, me, Spectra and this girl Teala that you've never met."

"Sounds good, but tomorrow night's not going to work. I've got a date tomorrow."

"Please tell me you're not going out with Flame Brain."

"Uhhhhh," Scarah muttered as she wondered what she should say.

"You are, aren't you?" Toralei asked.

"Yes," Scarah sheepishly answered.

"Didn't I say not to tell me that?" Toralei replied angrily.

"I'm sorry," Scarah said.

"So what changed your mind?"

"Heath made fun of Hoo Dude for wanting to pursue Frankie. Since Frankie created him, Heath accused Hoo Dude of wanting to make out with his mom."

Toralei snickered at this.

"That's not funny," Scarah said. "Okay, it's pretty funny but you still shouldn't laugh. Anyway, Despite Heath's intentions, that was exactly what Hoo Dude needed to hear because he ended up getting over his unrequited feelings for Frankie so I'm going to reward Heath with a date. The way I figure it if he meets my low expectations, I'm in for a surprisingly pleasant evening. If not, then I can use the fact that I gave him a shot and he blew it to discourage him from pursuing me. Either way works for me."

"That is very cold, detached and somewhat underhanded," Toralei said. "I've never felt closer to you."

"Thanks," Scarah said awkwardly. "As I was trying to say earlier, Purrsephone talked to me earlier. She wanted me to tell you that she has not told Cleo or her friends anything about your mixed scaritage or your sexual preferences and that I read her mind to verify that she was telling me the truth."

"Can you be sure of that?" Toralei asked. "When we first met, you didn't know what I thought of you until I told you."

"That was quite some time ago: I've gotten much better with my telepathy since then."

"Really? What am I thinking of right now?"

"You're thinking about how pissed you'll be if it turns out I really am an alien after all this time."

"Lucky guess. What am I thinking about now?"

"You're wondering how gross the area underneath Cleo's bandages are."

"Wow. You really have gotten better with that," Toralei said in admiration and then began processing Purrsephone's message. She was still pissed at Purrsephone but considered that the dark-haired twin was holding back, and not just for blackmail purposes. She then thought about all the disagreements with Purrsephone that ended with Toralei getting her way.

_Did I drive her to this, _Toralei asked herself.

"Thanks for delivering her message," Toralei thanked Scarah. "Will you be coming to my get-together on Saturday?"

"That depends," Scarah said. "Is this going to be a sleepover?"

"No," Toralei answered. "I tried that once with Spectra and she ended up sleep-haunting me."

"Sleep-haunting?" Scarah asked.

"It's exactly what it sounds like," Toralei replied with irritation thinking about it and then relaxed. "Besides, I understand how my tastes make you a little uncomfortable."

"Not that uncomfortable," Scarah said. "It's just that I don't like you that way."

"That's cool. I stopped liking you that way when I found out you weren't an alien."

….

In another part of the creepateria, Purrsephone sat down with Operetta.

"I'm very impressed with you, Purrsephone," Operetta said. "I mean, I'm not scared of Toralei but a big part of that is because I can scramble her brain if she tries something funny. For you to piss her off like, that takes serious guts."

"Thank you," Purrsephone said with a grin.

"Though I don't really understand why you want join Cleo's group so much," Operetta said. "They're a little too PG for my taste."

"I know, but I have my reasons," Purrspephne said. "If anyone asks how we know each other, say that my cousin works at the music store you go to a lot."

"Kay," Operetta agreed. "I imagine that your weekend's lookin pretty open what with you being on bad terms with Toralei and your sister. If you want," the southern ghoul looked around to make sure no one was nearby and then whispered, "you can bring some of the good stuff to the catacombs on Saturday."

"I will do that," Purrsephone said with a grin.

…

"I don't like this," Cleo said as she looked at Purrsephone and Operetta. She was sitting down with the rest of the fearleading team plus Lagoona and Abby.

"Are you really that upset over finding out that Operetta has been on friendly terms with the werecats?" Frankie asked.

"That's not what I'm talking about," Cleo clarified. "Having lunch with Operetta is part of Purrsephone's plan to make us like her more. This way, she avoids pushing things with us or coming off as too needy."

"Is that really so bad?" Clawdeen asked. "I know Purrsephone has her own reasons for wanting to be part of our group, but the fact that she wants us to like her that much proves that she really wants to no longer be a part of Toralei's acts of chronic bitchery. And how could that be anything but good?"

Cleo thought this over for a moment. "Good point," Cleo conceded. "I'm a little surprised that you stood up for her like you just did."

"You and me both," Clawdeen said. "I was really mad at her about that whole 'making me think she was mute' thing. And her betrayal of Toralei, while good for us and most people, contradicts werewolf values of loyalty which is a little confusing for me. But after enjoying the first two episodes of 'Grizzoli and Biles' that I watched last night and thinking about how Purrsephone's defection will impede Toralei's ability to be a pain in our asses, I have decided to let go of my anger with her and give her a chance."

"I'm very glad to hear that Clawdeen," Draculara said. "Why hold on to old grudges when you can make new friends?"

"About making new friends," Lagoona spoke up, "I'm not ready to give her a shot yet. Venus told me about the run-in she had with Purrsephone this morning."

"Can you at least give Purrsephone a chance to speak in her own defense?" Frankie asked.

"Okay," the sea creature answered.

"How do feel about his, Abbey?" Frankie asked.

"I'm willing to friendly with the kitty," the female yeti replied. Jackson then walked over to their table.

"Hey ghouls," Jackson said as he sat down.

"Hey Jackson," Frankie said. "What's up?"

"I need to tell you something about Purrsephone," He began.

…..

Back with Toralei and Scarah, the two of them had been making small talk with the last few minutes.

"I have to ask," Scarah said. "After what I've told you, are you still mad at Purrsephone?"

"Yes, but not as much," Toralei said. "I can't believe she did this to me so soon after my near-death experience."

"But I thought that trip to Syria your step-dad brought you along on was over a year ago," Scarah said in confusion

"It was," Toralei clarified as she rubbed the scars on her stomach from that unfortunate trip. "I'm talking about a trip he and my mom took me on last month to my ancestral homeland, Japan. I don't really want to talk about what happened, so why don't you just read my mind."

"Okay," Scarah said as she began to do just that. As she started looking through the werecat's mind, she saw some incredibly strange things. She saw an Asian man transform into a yellow bird monster that did not look like any kind of bird monster she knew of. Next, she saw a male werecat resembling a lion and a lizard woman fighting a group of grey humanoids with short horns on their heads that were all wielding spears. Lastly, she saw the strange bird monster wrap one of its talon-like feet around the lizard woman's throat and begin squeezing. Scarah then felt an intense wave of pain that made her break telepathic contact.

"I don't know what happened to you in Japan, and I don't want to know," Scarah said with her pupil-less eyes wide in fear.

…

After school that day, Ghoulia, Frankie, Clawdeen, Draculara, Lagoona and Abbey were standing outside the front door of the school. They had texted Purrsephone to join them and she did after a few minutes.

"Hi," Purrsephone said.

"Hi," Frankie said. "We need to talk about a few things."

"For starters," Lagoona began, "you were pretty mean to Venus this morning."

"And you're saying she wasn't mean when she temporarily robbed me of my free will to infringe on my right to not give a crap about the environment?" Purrsephone shot back.

Lagoona thought this over for a moment. While she definitely shared Venus's environmentalist philosophies, she wasn't sure that Venus using her mind control spores to enforce those philosophies was justified.

"Fair enough," she conceded. "But can you not be so confrontational with her in future?"

"Okay," Purrsephone said. "But I'm still going to wear a surgical mask around her as a precaution."

"That sounds fair," Lagoona admitted.

"More importantly," Frankie said, "Jackson told us about how you assured him that Toralei threatening him had nothing to do with him."

"Even though it meant letting him know that you could talk, which you didn't want people to know back then," Draculara said. "Care to explain that?"

"Toralei threatening Jackson like that," Purrsephone began, "was overly cruel, even compared to a lot of the other stuff she….. we have done. Not to mention unnecessary: even if Jackson decided to put on brightly colored spandex and play amateur monster slayer, we'd have nothing to worry about. Even if he teamed up with four other brightly colored normies, he probably wouldn't be that threatening by himself."

"Okay," Frankie said awkwardly. She did appreciate Purrsephone trying to help Jackson like that but she did not need to picture the mental image of him trying to kill monsters like that.

"You can have lunch with us tomorrow if you want," Clawdeen said.

"Sounds good," Purrsephone said as she smiled. "What would it take for Lagoona to bring extra sushi?"

"You like sushi?" Lagoona asked.

"It's raw fish: what's not to like?" Purrsephone relied.

"Bring me three dollars and I'll have some for you," Lagoona said.

"Purrfect," Purrsephone said with a wide grin. The first day of this arrangement had gone better than expected. She was feeling very good about how this was going to go.

….

Author's notes: I promise that the visions of Toralei's time in Japan will eventually make sense.


	5. Chapter 5

At lunch Friday, the ghouls sat down at a table. Purrsephone and Lagoona made their exchange for Purrsephone to have several pieces of sushi. Purrsephone was happy for this because it temporarily distracted her from the news she was about to deliver.

"I've got bad news, ghouls," Purrsephone said. "I want be able to make to fearleading practice after school today."

"After pissing off Toralei to get a spot on the team?" Cleo said. "What reason could you have to miss your first practice with us?"

"I've got detention," Purrsephone said. "I fell asleep in Mr. Rotter's class."

"_That is such entrapment," _Ghoulia groaned. "_If he doesn't want people to fall asleep during his class, he should try harder to be more captivating."_

"I could not agree with you more, Ghoulia," Purrsephone said and then her eyes widened in shock. "Holy crap: I understood that."

"I told you that trick would work," Draculara said.

"And you were right," Purrsephone said. "Anyway, there was no way I was going to make it through Mr. Rotter's class awake: not with as little sleep I got last night after that bad dream I had."

…

(Begin dream sequence)

_Purrsephone was in a restaurant, sitting at a table with Toralei and her sister._

"_I'm so glad we could make up after everything that's happened," Purrsephone said._

"_So am I," Toralei said as she grinned. A trap door opened above the twins and dumped bird feathers onto them. Meowlody was unaffected but Purrsephone started gasping for air as the inside of her throat began swelling. _

"_Don't worry: I know what to do," Toralei said as she grabbed a steak knife from the table. "I've seen this done on TV like eight times."_

"_You can't give her a tracheotomy with a steak knife!" Meowlody yelled._

"_You're right: I should use something bigger," Toralei said as she put down the steak knife and pulled out a machete from behind her. "In the interest of me not nicking anything I shouldn't, I'm gonna need you to remain perfectly still," Toralei said as she leveled the machete to make the incision._

(End dream sequence)

…

"Fortunately, it was at that point that I woke up screaming," Purrsephone said as she finished telling everyone about her dream. There was an awkward silence among the other ghouls as they absorbed what they heard.

"There's something wrong with you," Abbey said flatly.

"Seriously: you don't need to share everything with us," Frankie said.

_I think I liked it better when you didn't talk,_ Frankie added to herself.

"Moving on," Cleo said, eagerly wanting to put this subject behind them, "it's unfortunate you won't be able to make it to practice today. I have something else in mind if everyone's willing," Cleo said as she looked at Lagoona.

"What's going on here?" Purrsephone asked.

"Cleo's asking Lagoona if you can come to her birthday party on Saturday," Frankie explained.

"Oh," Purrsephone said as she realized how awkward things were. "If it makes any difference Lagoona, I am very sorry about telling people that you grew up in British prison."

"That didn't bother me," Lagoona said. "Australia hasn't been a penal colony for over a hundred years before I was born. And yes, you can come to my party."

"Alright. Will there be sushi?"

"Of course."

"Who else is coming?"

"Just our closest friends," Cleo began. "We're having it at my place, which my dad agreed to on the conditions that I limit it to less than twenty-five people."

"How are you planning to do that?" Purrsephone asked, remembering the last time Cleo threw a party at her place that it got out of hand very quickly.

"Abbey has volunteered to be our bouncer," Cleo answered, causing the yeti girl to grin and crack her knuckles.

"That'll do it," Purrsephone said. "Is Holt going to be the DJ?"

"He and Operetta are going to alternate duties in that area," Cleo said. "That way, Jackson can come and enjoy the festivities as well."

"Of course, his ability to mingle will be limited while he's wearing his acoustic dampening headphones," Purrsephone said as she put her hand around her chin and started stroking it.

"Why are you so interested in Holt and Jackson?" Frankie asked. "And how did you know that Jackson uses special headphones to make sure he doesn't turn into Holt?"

"I think I know," Draculara said in a sing-song voice. "She likes Jackson: that's why she asked about him, that's why she's paid attention to him and knows how he uses headphones to prevent transforming into Holt and that's why she tried to make Jackson feel better even though she risked word getting out about her not being mute."

_Damn, she's good, _Purrsephone thought as her eyes widened due to her now being pushed into a corner.

"Draculara is absolutely right," Purrsephone admitted. "I like Jackson."

"Why?" Cleo asked flatly. "He seems so boring."

"With all the excitement I've had with Toralei and my sister, a little boring would be a nice change of pace," Purrsephone said. "Besides, he's cute in an adorably dorky kind of way."

"Look Purrsephone," Clawdeen began. "You should stay away from Jackson. He and Frankie and Holt are going through some complicated stuff that you do not want to get in the middle of."

"Actually, this might be for the best," Frankie said. "Between Holt and Jackson, I like Holt more because he's so high-energy. I'd have told them this by now except I was worried that it would just destroy Jackson."

"But now he can have me as a consolation prize," Purrsephone said with a wide grin.

"Exactly," Frankie said. "If you want to pursue Jackson, this could be what's best for everybody."

"I'm glad we're in agreement about that," Purrsephone said. "Because I would very much like Jackson's cell number."

"Okay," Frankie said as she gave it to the werecat.

…..

Purrsephone walked into classroom that had been designated for detention and took a seat. A few other students were in there, but the teacher who was supposed to look over them hadn't arrived yet. Purrsephone was not looking forward to this: she didn't have a lot of homework to do and once she got that out of the way, she'd have nothing to do but sit quietly.

As she was thinking about this, Mr. Hack walked into the room.

_Things are starting to look up, _Purrsephone thought.

"Alright, you know the rules," Mr. Hack said as he sat down, took out a small pillow from the bag he had with him and placed the pillow on the desk. "Stay in the room and keep your traps shut and I didn't see anything." He then placed his head on the pillow and closed his eyes.

Mr. Hack was well known among the habitual troublemakers at Monster High for his somewhat crooked take on detention. While his terms certainly limited what could be done, most people used the time to play cards, join Mr. Hack in naptime or text their friends on the outside. The troublemakers didn't usually care about anything any authority said but they were so grateful to Mr. Hack for this arrangement that they made sure not to disturb his nap (mostly out of fear that doing so would aggravate him into revoking his generosity).

Purrsephone took out her icoffin and sent a text to Jackson. It read, "I got your number from Frankie. What's up?" (1)

"Not much," Jackson replied. "You?"

"Detention," Purrsephone texted back. "Fell asleep during Mr. Rotter's class."

"That is such entrapment," Jackson texted. Purrsephone quietly chuckled at how he used the exact wording as Ghoulia.

"Totally," Purrsephone texted. "I play video games sometimes. Is it just me or does every game involve shooting stuff?"

"That's pretty much the case with most major releases," Jackson replied. "You are not the only one who has noticed that." There was a pause as Jackson worked on a new text.

"I have an online friend who hates the pokemon games due to them pretty much being supernatural cockfighting, but decided to give one a shot because it was a change of pace from constantly shooting things."

Purrephone and Jackson made small talk for quite some time. One of the things they talked about was how Heath had a date with Scarah later that night and how neither of them saw that coming.

"I get off from detention at 5. Want to meet up in the park so we can talk in person."

"Yes," Jackson texted.

_Purrfect, _Purrsephone thought. She looked at the clock on her icoffin and noted that she and Jackson had texted back and forth for about forty minutes. _It didn't seem that long. _

She decided to spend what was left of her time in detention getting her homework out of the way.

…

After school that day, Toralei got on her motorcycle and rode to a bridge that was about two blocks from the park. Walls had been built around the area beneath the bridge so it could be used as a home for a family of trolls. She walked up to the wall and knocked on the door.

A female troll opened the door. She was large, with broad shoulders, thick arms and a pot belly atop tree trunk thighs. She had green skin with squarish facial features, somewhat large breasts, pointed ears and dark green hair that looked like it hadn't been washed in weeks (which was very likely due to trolls being infamous for their poor hygiene).

"Hi Teala," Toralei greeted her kind-of friend that she had kept in touch with a bit ever since she got away from her involuntary trip to Math Camp.

"Hi Toralei," Teala said with a gravelly, unfeminine voice (2) as she stepped outside. "I'd invite you inside but the place stinks more than usual, even by troll standards. My grandparents are coming for dinner on Sunday so mom's gathering engreadiants to make possum pot pie."

_There isn't a single part of that sentence that didn't gross me out a little, _Toralei thought.

"That's fine," Toralei said. "I hope things have been going good with you because I've seen better days." Toralei explained her situation with Purrsephone. "So I'm having a little get-together with two of my non-werecat twin friends and I was hoping you could make it."

"I'd love to!" Teala responed enthusiastically and then went to hug Toralei but the werecat held up her hand to stop her.

"Five feet of distance at all times," Toralei said and then lowered her hand. "Especially when you smell like motor oil and week-old salad dressing. Which reminds me: I'll need you to bathe before the get-together."

"Okay," Teala agreed. "I'll take my monthly bath one week early before meeting your other friends."

"Great," Toralei said. "Now how would you like a ride on my motorcycle?"

"I'd love that," Teala said gleefully and then toned it down. "But what about the five feet rule?"

"You can get closer than that once I put on my helmet," Toralei explained, then turned around and walked over to her motorcycle, a Honda CBR.

"Cool," Teala said as she walked behind Toralei and admired her motorcycle.

"Yes, it's very cool," Toralei said as she put on her helmet. She wasn't very fond of the bike at first because she originally wanted a Kawasaki Ninja, which was sleeker and less bulky than the CBR. Unfortunately, her step dad refused to give her one due to it being a high-performance machine, making it both expensive and ill suited for beginner riders.

Toralei handed the spare helmet she kept in the bike's under seat compartment to Teala. The troll girl put on the helmet and they both got on.

…

Author's notes: (1) I don't text much and what little I do, I do in complete sentences. Imagine they had this conversation the way people actually text.

(2) I imagine Teala sounding like Grenda from 'Gravity Falls' but less manish.


	6. Chapter 6

After detention got out, Purrsephone caught a bus to the park. Jackson was waiting for her near the bus stop. The dark-haired werecat walked over to him.

"Hey," she greeted.

"Hey," he returned.

"Thank you so much for telling the ghouls about our encounter earlier," Purrsephone said. "And I think I know how to repay you. There's a shop nearby that has the best ice cream in town."

They started walking towards the shop.

"So what's been going on with you and Holt and Frankie lately?" Purrsephone asked.

"Things between me and Holt are much better now," Jackson began. "We've worked out a timeshare of sorts. As for Frankie, she and I are hanging out as friends but emotionally, we're at arms length. I don't know what the deal is with her and Holt."

"Keep in mind," Purrsephone began, "that if things between you and Frankie don't develop the way you want, there's always more fish in the buffet."

"You mean fish in the sea," Jackson said.

"No I don't," Purrsephone corrected. "Werecats say 'other fish in the buffet' instead because of how much we like seafood."

Jackson nodded in understanding as they kept walking. "Why didn't you tell Cleo and her friends about that conversation we had?"

"That was a very personal moment between us, mostly you," Purrsephone explained. "Besides, if I told Cleo and her friends about that, they wouldn't have believed me and then Cleo would have gone to you to verify it. I didn't want to put you on the spot like that."

"Thank you," Jackson said as he began processing stuff.

_Not wanting to tell Cleo's group about her attempt to comfort me for my sake, _Jackson began thinking. _Texting me in detention, asking me about where I stand with Frankie, her talk of other fish: I think she's coming on to me._

Jackson looked at the dark-haired werecat and thought about this. He was far from opposed to the idea of pursuing this course with her, but things with Frankie complicated matters. He needed time to decide what he was going to do, but he was tempted to move on from Frankie and try his luck with Purrsephone.

They made it to the ice cream shop and walked in. A few minutes later, Toralei and Teala had pulled up outside the shop on Toralei's motorcycle. They got off, Teala very glad to be on solid ground after a somewhat scary and very thrilling ride. They walked inside and saw Jackson and Purrsephone start to walk out with ice cream cones in hand.

"You," Toralei said in shock at seeing her estranged friend.

"Hi Toralei," Purrsephone said in fear. Between Toralei still being angry over her betrayal and being seen with Jackson, this was not going to go well. She then turned and saw Teala. "Hi Teala," she said awkwardly.

"Hi Purrsephone," Teala said enthusiastically.

"Who's this?" Jackson asked.

"This is Teala, the troll girl: she's a troll girl," Purrsephone explained as walked to the side and motioned for them to stop blocking the entrance to the shop. "Toralei, my sister and I met her at the math camp Cleo's group sent us to as revenge for trying to frame them for an expulsion level prank."

"Okay," Jackson said, remembering what Frankie told him about that.

"What are you doing here with him?" Toralei asked.

"Business," Purrsephone answered.

"What kind of business?"

"None of your business."

Teala laughed a bit Purrsephone's joke, which did not help Toralei's mood.

"You're not going out with him, are you?" Toralei asked. "Look at him: he's a total dork."

"Saying that next to the home-schooled troll math nerd kinda hurts whatever point you're trying to make," Purrsephone countered and then turned to Teala. "No offense."

"None taken," Teala clarified.

"And why did you go with that first instead of the normie thing?" Purrsephone asked.

"I got over my hatred of Normies recently," Toralei explained.

"What?" Purrsephone asked in astonishment. _So that's what that feels like, _she mentally added.

"It happened during my trip to Japan last month," Toralei said. "I never told you how that went, did I?"

"No," Purrespone answered. "All I know is that you were dreading the trip to your ancestral homeland. Though I don't see why: my ancestral homeland is in the part of Africa you see on commercials asking you to adopt their children for fifty cents a day so they can have clean drinking water."

"My ancestral homeland is Hoboken, New Jersey," Jackson interjected. "Not much of a step up."

"I was uncomfortable with my Japanese scaritage because of what happened to my uncle," Toralei began. "And then last month, during that family trip, a normie saved my life."

"Saved your life?" Purrsephone asked with a quirked eyebrow. "You almost died again!?"

"Again?" Teala asked.

"Oh, I never told you about what happened to me in Syria?" Toralei asked.

"All of Monster High knows what happened to you on that trip," Jackson started. "So there's no reason for you to….." he stopped as Toralei held up her shirt and revealed two nasty looking scars on the left side of her stomach. "Do that," Jackson said as he rubbed his forehead in frustration. "Why?"

"Why not?" Toralei said as she lowered her shirt.

"Cool," Teala said. "What's the story behind those?"

"My step-dad brought me with him on a business trip to Syria," Toralei explained. "These are shrapnel scars from a car bomb that went off near a cafe I was having lunch at. Now where was I?"

"A normie saved your life in Japan," Purrsephone said.

"Oh yeah," Toralei said as she reached into her jacked pocket and took out a ring with a large, amber stone on top. "His name is Haruto Souma, or Souma Haruto depending on which naming convention you use. He's a wizard, though not like any we're familiar with. He saved me from this demon spirit thing that wanted to drive me into despair so that I would give birth to another of its kind."

"I see," Purrsephone said in curiosity. "Can you tell me more?"

"I don't want to go into the details right now," Toralei said. "You remember how it was like two months before I got over what happened in Syria to the point where I wanted to talk about it and start grossing people out with my shrapnel scars."

"I don't like you," Jackson said with a glare.

"Don't like you too but only because you're a huge dweep," Toralei shot back. "Anyway, while I was in Japan I found out that the normie S.O.B who killed my uncle and was never identified eventually got what was coming to him. Between that and Haruto saving my life, I've pretty much lost all the disdain I had for normies and my own Japanese scaritage."

"Good to know that you are no longer interested in chopping off any of my body parts for stuff I had nothing to do with," Jackson said. "I'm very glad we had this chat."

"Whatever," Toralei said dismissively. "I'll see you later, Seph."

With that, Toralei and Teala walked into the shop. Jackson and Purrsephone walked to a spot where they could cross over to the park while finishing off their ice cream. They had just finished their treats when a car drove past them that was blaring rock music. Jackson was covered in a ring of fire as he changed into Holt.

"Hey hey hey," Holt said as he looked around to see where he now was. "Well hello there pretty kitty. What are you doing here hanging out with the prince of dorkness?"

"There's an explanation for that," Purrsephone said as she looked past Holt and looked like she just saw something interesting. "Is that Frankie in a tube-top?"

"What!?" Holt exclaimed as he turned to see that Frankie was not there and certainly not in a tube-top. He turned back to ask Purrsephone about that but she wasn't there or anywhere around. He shrugged his shoulders and walked away.

_It's almost sad how easy that was, _Purrsephone thought. When she got Holt to turn around, she jumped up and climbed onto the branch of a nearby tree that was planted in the sidewalk. She jumped down when she saw Holt had walked away.

_I'm gonna have to work out some kind of shared-custody arrangement with Holt and Frankie, _Purrsephone thought. She thought about calling this off with Jackson but decided not to. She was really starting to like Jackson and was determined to make this work. _Besides, _she thought, _Frankie's counting me to be there for Jackson when she rejects him. For both their sakes, I need to see through. Good thing I'm pretty sure Jackson's worth it._

Purrsephone decided to go back to the ice cream shop and talk to Toralei and Teala. She walked back and caught them shortly after they left. "Hey," she called to them. They stopped and turned around to see her.

"What happened to that normie guy?" Teala asked.

"Holt showed and I decided to ditch him."

"Who's Holt?"

"Long story."

"I'm glad you came back," Toralei said. "I talked with Scarah recently. After she told me about how you havne't spilled your guts about everything you know about me, I started thinking that maybe I did piss you off into turning on me. If I say I'm sorry, will you come back to me?"

"I can't do that," Purrsephone said with regret. "It's not part of my plan."

"What plan?" Toralei asked.

"I'd tell you, but that would spoil the surprise," Purrsephone said with a mishevious grin.

Toralei wasn't sure what to think right now. Considering that Purrsephone joined Cleo's group because she didn't want make peace with them, it seemed very likely that that was the goal of Purrsephone's plan. Toarlei had never been interested in making peace with Cleo but Purrsephone's headway with that and her curiosity to see what the plan was enough to convince Toralei to let Purrsephone continue with it.

"Fair enough," Toralei said. "I am sorry though."

"Thank you," Purrsephone said and then hugged Toralei.

"I'm having a little get together tomorrow," Toralei said as they separated. "It's just going to be me, Spectra, Scarah and Teala. I wanted to surround myself with what friends I had left after you… that part's not important, do you want to come?"

"Aw, crap," Purrsephone said. "That's gonna be a problem: I've already been invited to a party Cleo's having tomorrow. It's important for the plan that I go to that party."

"All right," Toralei said.

…

A few hours later, Heath and Scarah had finished their date. Scarah was able to telepathically sense how nervous Heath was about not making a total jackass out of himself, especially when during dinner when their waitress was a well-endowed cyclops with a low-cut blouse. Scarah could sense that Heath was both aroused by the sight and ashamed at how he was thinking of another girl while on this date that he had waited so long for. Scarah decided to pretend that she hadn't noticed him looking because she could sense how much he wanted her to like him, and not even for sleazy reasons.

"I had a good time tonight, Heath," Scarah said.

"Good enough for a second date?" Heath asked with a smirk.

"I'll need to think about it," Scarah said.

"I ask because there's a party tomorrow and I'd like you to come," Heath said.

Scarah's eyes widened in shock (although with her pupil-less eyes, it was really hard to tell). "I need to think about that Heath and go over some stuff with a friend," Scarah said as she took her icoffin out of her purse and auto-dialed a contact. "Purrsephone, it's Scarah. We have a situation."

…

Author's notes: Toralei's tirp to Japan will be chronicled in a story I will write later that takes place before this one. It's going to be a crossover with the tokusatsu show Kamen Rider Wizard.


	7. Chapter 7

Scarah explained the circumstances to Purrsephone and they agreed to meet in person. Heath had been allowed to borrow his dad's car for his date and Scarah was able to talk him into picking up Purrsephone then going to Cleo's place. Scarah called Cleo ahead and asked her to meet them outside her place.

Heath pulled his car into the driveway of Cleo's house and Scarah and Purrsephone got out. Heath decided to stay in the car and listen to the radio rather than deal with 'girl stuff'. Cleo walked out of her house and walked up to them.

"So what's the emergency?" Cleo asked.

"Heath has invited me to your party tomorrow night," Scarah said. Which wouldn't normally be a problem except Toralei has invited me to another party tomorrow night as well. I want to go to your party but if Toralei thinks you've turned me against her, things will bad get bad very quickly."

"Toralei invited me to her party as well," Purrsephone continued.

"I thought she was still very pissed at you," Cleo said.

"She's less pissed now," Purrsephone said. "I turned her down and that went okay. I think I'll be able to smooth things over with her eventually, but if she thinks you're turning Scarah against her it will really piss her off and it might set me back to square one. Also, is Spectra coming to your party tomorrow?"

"I was going to invite her tomorrow as a surprise," Cleo answered. "It's my way of showing her that there's no hard feelings over her secretly associating with Toralei behind my back."

"That's even worse," Purrsephone said. "If both Spectra and Scarah go to your party, Toralei will think you're trying to turn them against her and plan something for revenge. Which will be bad for both of us because she might go back to being pissed at me again."

"I'm not scared of her," Cleo said. "She's tried to take me down many times in the past, but I've always stayed on top: exactly where I belong," Cleo said with an almost tangible air of smugness.

"Do you know why Toralei has it out for you?" Scarah asked.

"Because she's a bitch," Cleo answered.

"No. Well yes, but there's more to it than that," Scarah replied awkwardly. "Do you remember back in freshman year when you were struggling on the fearleading team?"

"Yes," Cleo said nervously, not liking where this was going. "And to answer your next question, I do remember Toralei showing me some gymnastic pointers. But all the improvement I made was mostly due to my own greatness."

"I'm sure it was," Scarah said diplomatically, hoping to smooth things over for what was about to happen. "What you don't know is that your sister only let you onto the fearleading team in the hopes that you would fail and embarrass yourself. When Toralei threw a monkey wrench into that plan, Nefera decided to punish her by giving you the captain position."

"That's ridiculous," Cleo shot back indignantly.

"Is it really?" Purrsephone asked. "Nefera hates you, right?"

"Oh yes," Cleo admitted. "And it's very mutual."

"I'm sure it is," Persephone said. "Doesn't it seem strange that she gave you the captains position despite that?"

"I assumed that despite our issues with each other, she wanted to keep the position in the family," Cleo said and then put her chin in her hand as she thought things over. "What you're saying is possible, but raises a few questions. For starters, why am I only hearing about this just now?"

"I was going to tell you eventually," Purrsephone said. "But I needed to win you over first. For example, Clawdeen wouldn't have believed me when she was still upset about that whole 'pretending to be mute' thing."

_This is so not according to my plan, _Purrspehone thought. Her original plan was to gain the trust of Cleo and her friends, then explain why Toralei was so mad at Cleo in the hopes that they could all work this out like emotionally mature monsters. Scarah had ruined that plan, but there was a chance that things could still work out.

"Fair enough," Cleo said, accepting Purrsephone's explanation and then turned towards Scarh. "What about you?"

"I didn't want to get involved," Scarah said. "You were pretty mean back then and according to Toralei, you had completely forgotten about her helping you. I didn't want to get you angry at me."

"Cleo," Purrsephone said to get the mummy girls attention. "When I originally suggested to Toralei that we try to talk things out with you, she didn't want to do it on the grounds that you are impossible to reason with: do you really want to prove her right? Keep that in mind for what I'm about to suggest," Purrsephone took a deep breath. "I think you should invite Toralei to the party tomorrow."

"You're even crazier than I thought," Cleo said.

"First off, I'm not crazy: I'm just really, really weird," Purrsephone said. "Second, Toralei will be coming to your party anyway. Better to invite her so she comes in through the front door where everyone can keep an eye on her rather then she scurries in through the back."

_Now that's the kind of thinking I can get behind,_ Cleo thought. She also wanted to confront Toralei about what she had just learned.

"I'll invite her," Cleo said.

"Great," Purrsephone said as she took out her icoffin, auto-dialed Toralei and put her on speaker.

"Hey seph," Toralei said.

"Hey," Purrsephone said. "There's someone else here who wants to talk to you."

"Hello Toralei," Cleo said.

"What is she doing here?" Toralei said.

Cleo started explaining the situation about how the two of them were unintentionally playing tug-of-war with Spectra and Scarah's loyalties and that it would be best for them to settle this by having Toralei come to her party.

"Can I bring someone?" Toralei asked.

"Who do you want bring" Cleo asked.

"A troll ghoul named Teala," Toralei said. "She was really looking forward to my party. If I tell her that my party's been cancelled, she won't take it well."

"I suppose one more person wouldn't be a big deal," Cleo said. "So are you coming?"

"Yes," Toralei said. All the stuff that happened recently with Purrsephone made her realize that ignoring her about trying to make peace with Cleo may have been a mistake. And if Cleo's invite had anything to do with Purrsephone's plan, then she wanted to see where this was going.

"I'll have someone pick you and Teala up tomorrow," Cleo said. _To make sure you come in through the front door, _she mentally added. "I'll text you the details." Cleo took Purrsephone's phone, ended the call and proceeded to do just that. "I better not regret this," Cleo said to Purrsephone.

"You won't," Purrsephone said. _I hope, _she thought.


	8. Chapter 8

That Saturday, Purrsephone and Operetta met in the catacombs underneath Monster High. The werecat had brought a few joints with her and they were going to enjoy themselves before the party. Operetta took a long drag of a joint and let out a sigh of enjoyment.

"Where do you get this stuff?" the southern ghoul asked.

"I skim off the top of my grandma's glaucoma medication," Purrsephone explained.

"Really," Operetta said as she processed that. "Your granny has great taste in weed."

"You should thank grandpa," Persephone said. "Thanks to his decades of employment with Green Spear Green Sword, we have awesome insurance."

They sat in silence for a while as they took a few more drags.

"What do you thinks gonna happen at the party tonight?" Operetta asked.

"I have no idea," Purrsephone said. "Cleo seemed pretty open-minded to the idea of making peace with Toralei last night. She already surprised me once before when she found out I was blackmailing Toralei and didn't pressure me about it. And Toralei is going along with this pretty well. Hopefully everything will work out."

…

Around seven that night, most of the ghouls had gathered at Cleo's house and were either waiting for everyone else to arrive or making final preparations for the party. Cleo was not happy with a last-minute surprise Clawdeen had dropped on her.

"I can't believe you brought your little sister with you" Cleo said with almost tangible irritation.

"I'm sorry about that," Clawdeen began. "Howleen overheard Clawd and I talking about how Toralei is coming to the party tonight and said she wanted to be here to help finish whatever Toralei might start. Honestly, how could I say no to that?"

"Good point," Cleo conceded. "But I really want to try talking things out with Toralei first, so make sure she doesn't get ahead of herself."

"Alright," Clawdeen said, turned to walk away and then turned back to Cleo. "Do you really think this will work?"

"I have my doubts," Cleo said. "But I also had my doubts about Purrsephone, and look at that's turned out."

….

About thirty minutes later, everyone had arrived at Cleo's place. Toralei and Teala walked through the door with everyone else (Frankie, Draculara, Clawdeen, Cleo, Ghoulia, Lagoona, Abbey, Operetta, Spectra, Venus, Rochelle, Robecca, Clawd, Deuce, Jackson, Heath, Scarah, Howleen and Purrsephone) looking at them.

"Hi everybody," Teala said enthusiastically, completely unaware of the tension in the room. "My name is Teala and I'm looking forward to meeting all of you. And in case you're worried about getting too close to me, Toralei made me take a forty minute shower and brush my teeth with half a tub of tooth paste before coming here. I'm so glad….."

"That's enough for now, Teala," Toralei interrupted her. "Right now, I'm pretty sure everyone wants me and Cleo to talk things out."

"That's right," Cleo said. "I've heard Purrsephone's version of events that involves you me only becoming fearleading captain because Nefera decided to punish you for helping me. I've been thinking things over and while a lot of the pieces fit, this still raises a few questions. First off, if you have such bad history with Nefera why did you work for her again during Mashionals?"

"Thanks to Nefera," Toralei began, "Me and the twins were going to go from not even being on the fearleading team to competing in Mashionals: it was just too good of an opportunity to pass up. Besides, I thought that giving us the opportunity was Nefera's way of saying that she was sorry for how she acted. Turns out, she'd actually forgotten all about that."

"That definitely sounds like her," Cleo admitted. "But why haven't you confronted me about this earlier?"

"You forgot all about me helping you," Toralei said. "By that point, talking things out didn't seem like an option."

"And with Nefra graduating you decided to take out all your anger on Cleo and those close to her," Clawdeen said. "I can understand being super pissed off about getting royally screwed over by both de Nile sisters, but I don't think you picked the best way to handle the situation. Then again, neither did Cleo and I'm sure she's ready to make up for that now."

"Whose side are you on, Clawdeen?" Cleo asked.

"I'm on whatever side involves settling this mess for good," Clawdeen said with her hands on her hips. "You haven't always been as easy to get along with as you are now, Cleo. You'll have to forgive me if I think you making up for stuff you did back then so that Toralei stops being a thorn in all our asses is a price I'm willing to pay. Besides, what lead to you being more easy to be around?"

"Well," Cleo began, "I knew that I needed to rethink my leadership style after the old fearleading team walked out on me because...," Cleo paused in awkwardness as she looked at Toralei, "she convinced them to."

"And needing to rethink your leadership style," Clawdeen continued, "was a big part of what lead to us winning Mashionals."

"You're welcome," Toralei smugly. Cleo closed her eyes as she gathered the strength for what she was about to say.

"After taking everything into account," Cleo said, "I am willing to make a gesture of good faith. Would you like to be on the fearleading team, Toralei?"

"About that," Purrsephone interjected. "I think I might have an idea you'll both like. You remember how Nefera created a fearleading B team?" Everyone nodded yes. "I suggest the creation of another B team that Toralei has mostly free rein over."

"I like the idea of not having Cleo bark orders at me," Toralei said.

"And I like the idea of not having to integrate Toralei into my team," Cleo said with a grin as she rubbed her chin in thought. "This could work."

"Does that mean we have a deal?" Toralei said as she held out her hand.

"Provided that you don't cause anymore problems for me or friends, yes," Cleo said as she shaked Toralei's hand. Everyone around them clapped in celebration of a successfully reached peace of agreement.

_This is awesome_, Spectra thought as she recorded the proceeding on her iCoffin. _Not only will this be great for my blog, but I probably won't have to worry about any conflicts of loyalty in the future._

"This was your plan all along, wasn't it?" Toralei asked Purrsephone. "Get in good withs Cleo and her friends, then tell them why I've had it out for them in the hopes we could talk everything out."

"Yes," Purrsephone said and then turned to Cleo's friends. "I'm sorry for not being completely honest with all of you but I have some bad experience with how people will go to great lengths to believe only what they want to believe." Cleo then glared at her angrily. "Not you, Cleo: I'm talking about my sister."

"Oh, you'll like this," Toralei said with a grin. "Purrsephone and I have been working on this bit for a while now. So she's herself and I'm Meowlody," Toralei finished as she cleared her throat.

"We've been over this before Meowoldy," Purrsephone said in irritation. "We're not Bitalian: we are of African descent."

"According to you," Toralei said in a perfect mimicry of Meowldy's voice.

"And our family history of sickle cell anaemia."

"Which is also a problem in countries on the Mediterian coast: like Bitaly."

"And what about those pictures we have of Grandma [1] from the 70's with those normy political radicals."

"For all we know, that afro was a wig and she went to that rally deeply confused about what a black panther party was."

A few people laughed at this but most didn't.

"I don't get it," Frankie said in confusion.

"Ask your parents," Draculara said.

"You did all this for me, even after I sent out that embarrassing picture of you. Why?"

"Because," Purrsephone said as she reached into one of her vest pockets, "You're like a sister to me." Purrsephone took out the drawing symbolizing how she and Meowlody saw her as their third, non-identical sister and handed it back to Toralei.

Toralei took the drawing and was speechless. She was very tempted to hug Purrsephone but fought down that urge because she didn't want to display sentimentality in front of so many other people. After suppressing that urge for about five seconds, she decided she didn't care anymore and embraced Purrsephone. Purrsephone returned the hug and everyone observing decided it would be a good idea to never bring this up in front of Toralei.

With the negotiations and reconciliation out of the way, everyone began enjoying themselves. Teala went to try making some new friends. She had trouble hitting it off with other people but Draculara and Frankie decided they were going to help her: Frankie because she knew how much it sucked trying to make friends while thrown into an unfamiliar situation and Draculara because she was just that nice.

Jackson had turned into Holt, who had taken on DJ duties. Purrsephone had decided that that was for the best because a party environment was simply not the best place to enjoy Jackson's company. Besides, Frankie hadn't rejected him yet and it would be kind of weird to hang out with him while she wanted to take things further but couldn't due to social complications.

_I can understand Frankie not wanting to reject him at the party_, Purrsephone thought, _but I hope she goes through with this soon._

Purrsephone then looked around and saw Howleen, who was trying and failing to insert herself into a conversation between Clawd, Deuce and Heath. The dark-haired werecat then went over to her and tapped her shoulder.

"Disappointed toralei didn't give you a reason to go apeshit on her?" Purrsephone asked as they took a few steps away from the guys.

"The night is still young," Howleen said. "So you really went through all this just to settle things between Cleo and Toralei because you knew that it would be best for Toralei?" Howleen asked and Purrsephone nodded yes. Howleen paused for a second as she thought about to say. "Toralei is very lucky to have you as a friend."

"I know," Purrsephone said smugly. "You probably don't know this, but you and I have a quite a bit in common."

"How's that?" Howleen asked.

"We have similar sibling issues," Purrsephone began. "My main issue is interchangeability: people thinking me and my sister are the same person because we look alike. I imagine you have issues with invisibility: people not noticing you or only noticing you as Clawd and Clawdeen's little sister Wanna talk about it?"

Howleen was stunned into silence for a moment over how absolutely right Purrsephone was about them having similar issues. She decided to open to her about and compare notes - so to speak - in further detail.

Toralei went over to Clawdeen and got the female werewolf's attention.

"So I hear that Purrsephone gave you season 1 of Grizzoli and Biles," Toralei said.

"Yeah," Clawdeen admitted, thinking it was a little odd that Toralei wanted to talk about a show that was about a female homicide detective and her medical examiner friend. "I'm really liking it so far."

"You might not want to keep watching," Toralie said. "At the end of the second season, they become more than friends."

Clawdeen began glaring at the werecat in an attempt to convey that much like an overpriced and horrendously colored dress, Clawdeen was not buying what Toralei was saying about the titular female leads.

"You're just messing with me," Clawdeen said matter-of-factly

"You know me so well," Toralei said playfully.

The party continued on and even though things got awkward when Teala asked Robecca if she could survive being crushed into a cube, everything went smoothly. That is, until the stereo was cut off unexpectedly and everyone turned to see the bane of Cleo's existence behind it.

"What do you want, Nefera?" Cleo asked angrily. "Dad knew about this party happening, so you can't blackmail with that."

"I know," Nefera said. "I also know that he let you have the party with a maximum of twenty people, which you are over by one."

_Oh crap_, Cleo thought as she looked around and took a quick headcount. Unfortunately, her count verified that Nefera was right. _And knowing Nefera, she's taken pictures to prove that I went over the limit. It's only one person: I'll take my chances with dad rather than give into her demands._

"Are you for real, Nefera?" Toralei spoke up before Cleo could express her refusal to comply. "You really have nothing better to do on a Saturday night than harass your little sister and her guests over a minor matter? How the mighty have fallen."

"Like I care what a mangy alley cat like you thinks," Nefera shot back.

_I like where this is going_, Cleo thought as it looked like her two least favorite people in the world were about to be at each other's throats.

"In that case," Toralei began, "you won't care when I say that you are in this sorry position because of your own inability to think ahead."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Nefera asked angrily.

"Back at mashionals," Toralei said. "Both Monster High teams were in the final round and despite your various attempts to undermine your sister, you were technically in charge of both teams. No matter which team won, it would have turned out good for you. But no, you just had to try using your family's mystic doo dads to sabotage Cleo and her friends, and look how that turned out."

While Nefera was seething in anger, Purrsephone decided to sneak behind the spoiled Egyptian princess. The werecat reached into one of her vest pockest and grabbed her sock of pennies, ready to intervene in the increasingly likely event that Nefera decided to resort to violence.

_This is Perfect_, Purrsephone thought to herself as she got into position. _I can further endear myself to Cleo and her friends, help Toralei out of a tight spot and take Nefera down some much needed pegs. I'm a genius!_

"Now look here, Toralei," Nefera said with barely contained fury, "We go back a ways, so I'm going to give you a chance to take that stuff you said back before I make you." With that, Nefera reached inside one of her wraps, pulled out a small handle-like object and then flipped out a knife blade from it.

"Since when do you have a switchblade?" Cleo asked with equal amounts of shock and fear.

"It's a long story," Nefera said.

…..

(Begin flashback)

_Nefera was walking through the maul when she looked through a store's display window and saw something that caught her eye. It was a switchblade that had a black and gold handle with the Egyptian hieroglyphics for 'insurmountable strength of Ra' inscribed on the blade. _

"_Neat," Nefera said in glee._

(End flashback)

…..

"Well," Nefera began, "I suppose it's not so much long as uninteresting, but that's not important. What's important is…," Nefera was interrupted by Purrsephone swinging the sock of pennies at her head just hard enough to distract the knife wielding princess. Toralei capitalized on the distraction by knocking the switchblade out of Nefera's hands.

"Thanks for the help, Seph," Toralei said. "Not that I needed it: this isn't the first time someone's pulled a knife on me."

"That does not surprise me," Clawdeen said. "You are very good at pissing people off."

"It's a gift," Toralei said with a smile of pride. "Now what are we going to do about her?"

"I have an idea," Purrsephone said with a smile as she took out a roll of duct tape from one of her vest pockets and stretched out a bit.

….

Three minutes later, Nefera had been successfully duct taped to a chair as the party continued around her.

"She is going to be very pissed when she gets out," Toralei said to Cleo as they danced next to each other.

"I'm not too worried," Cleo said. "I'll call dad first then let her out. After I explain to him that my guests felt duct taping her to the chair was necessary to make sure she didn't stab anyone, he'll probably see things my way."

Cleo still had her doubts about trusting Toralei but after seeing the werecat call out Nefera on her lack of foresight at great risk, Cleo was willing to make this work.

_Besides_, Cleo thought, _Nefera's current situation and this new truce with Toralei are the result of giving Purrsephone the benefit of the doubt._ _It would seem that in certain situations, a little trust can go a long way. _

…

Author's notes: [1] that grandma is different from the one the twins take glaucoma medicine from.

There will be a short epilogue to conclude this story.


	9. Chapter 9

The following Tuesday morning at Monster High before classes started, Purrsephone was about to go was taking Meowlody over to Cleo, Frankie, Draculara, Clawdeen and Ghoulia to go over the new arrangement. The white-haired werecat had returned from Canada last night and Purrsephone had told her about what had happened in her absence.

"Hello Meowlody," Draculara said. "I take that Purrsephone told you the way things are now?" Meowoldy nodded yes. "I know this must seem strange to you."

"Strange doesn't quite cover it," Meowlody said. "I've been gone for less than a week and when I come back, it's like the world has gone upside down. Still, these changes seem like they'll be very good ones and anything beats getting kicked by one of uncle Jerry's emus hard enough to make me think my spleen and appendix switched places."

The other ghouls gasped in shock at this.

"Fortunately," Meowlody continued, "Since we were in Canada, I was able to get a free MRI and found out that the damage wasn't that bad. Seriously, why does this country not have universal healthcare?"

"Because democracy is overrated," Cleo said, and was then met with disdainful looks from the others. "What? There is a reason you won't see anything in the history books about the pharaohs of Egypt having their opinions influenced by campaign contributions from special interest groups."

"We'll save that for another time," Draculara said, looking to change the subject and looked at Meowlody. "You're well enough to go to school after an injury like that?"

"Mostly," Meowlody said. "I have to take pills for the pain couple of hours. And these are good pills: the kind movie stars O.D. on."

_I'll have to ask her for some of those_, Purrsephone thought.

"But there's one thing Purrsephone didn't fill me on," Meowlody continued as she looked at Cleo. "What happened when your dad found out about you having your sister duct taped to a chair?"

"Fortunately for me," Cleo began, "Spectra had recorded the whole 'Nefera pulled out a knife first' thing and what lead up to that. I showed dad the recording and he was not happy with Nefera about how she felt that, and I'm quoting here 'a minor offense from Cleo and a few rudely worded statements of fact were enough to make you pull out a knife'. Dad decided that since Nefera has so much time on her hands and hasn't been doing anything while waiting for her modeling career to bounce back, Nefera is going to be sent to an out of state college for the foreseeable future."

There was an awkward silence for a few seconds.

"Let me get this straight," Meowlody said. "Nefera is being punished by going to college?" Cleo nodded yes. "Your family doesn't really live in the same world as the rest of us, do they?"

"We sure don't," Cleo said with a smile of pride.

"Out of curiosity," Clawdeen said, "what would it take to piss off your dad enough for him to pay my way through college?"

"I don't know," Cleo said. "And I don't think it would be a good idea to ask him."

The bell rang signaling them that they needed to get to class soon rang and they went their separate ways. Purrsephone was very proud of herself for pulling this off and bringing forth an era of peace between Cleo, Toralei and their respective friends. Even better, in a few day she was going to tell Jackson how she felt and they would most likely get together.

_Life is good_, she thought to herself.

…

Author's notes: there is going to a short story to serve as a follow-up. It's going to more pairing based than this one, which is why I'm making it another story.


End file.
